O comportamento ritual não só revela realidades práticas e mundanas, é também um teatro vivo da psicologia colectiva e uma das mais ricas expressões da ideologia e crenças - mentalidade - de uma sociedade. Afinal de contas, como os antropólogos notaram, a religião é mais do que um padrão de relações sociais: é uma expressão da capacidade humana para imaginar a estrutura da sociedade. O ritual religioso não é apenas construção cultural: é uma forma de cognição que constrói modelos de realidade e paradigmas de comportamento. E dentro deste processo pelo qual a realidade é definida, o ritual da morte joga um papel central.
So bring me this man, trembling and shivering from head to foot; let me fall into his arms or down at his knees; he will weep and we shall weep, he will be eloquent and I shall be comforted, and my heart shall melt into his, he will take my soul, and I his God. But what is this kindly old gentleman to me? And what am I to him? Just one more member of the race of unfortunates, one more shade to go with the many he has seen, one more figure to add to his total of executions.
In a typical desperation for quick answers, easily understood, people had turned to primitive worship as the solution. With less than success. Not only had they died as quickly as the rest of the people, but they had died with terror in their hearts, with a mortal dread flowing in their very veins.
On the church vaulting above was the clock-face of eternity, void of number and serving as its own hand, only one black finger was pointing and the dead wanted to tell the time by it.
Among other things, culture is the decision as to how a corpse is to be returned to the soil.
Religion offers the masses two things: a roadmap for life and an escape route from death.
The psychoanalyst Otto Rank declared modern love a religious problem. As we grow increasingly secular and move away from the towns where we were born, we can no longer use religion or community to confirm our meaning in the world, so we seize a love partner instead, someone to distract us from the fact of our animal existence. French existentialist Albert Camus said it best: “Ah, mon cher, for anyone who is alone, without God and without a master, the weight of days is dreadful.
We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.
Don’t be afraid,” she said. “The dead cannot hurt you. They give you no pain, except that of seeing your own death in their faces. And one can face that, I find.” Yes, he thought, the good face pain. But the great—they embrace it.
Death is a mystery beyond description.
Life is like an endless book. Each day is a new page and only death can bring the end to this little book of yours.
Caution was better. Safety was preferable. Life typically trumped death.
There is more to life than making money and fucking someone else. If you are scared of dying, then you have lots of regrets.
Every human being on earth has two things in common. Death and a broken heart. RJ Intindola – 1977
Courage is life's only measure.
Give up your fear of death and no power will have authority over your life.
Life is just about to learn How to die gracefully
The only things you take to heaven with you are the relationships you build here on earth.
Don’t just cautiously step through life to reach death safely.
If your life flashed before your eyes right now, would it be worth watching?
